


On Feedback: An Author's Perspective

by JLencre



Category: Original Work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-13
Updated: 2017-12-13
Packaged: 2019-02-14 09:19:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13004673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JLencre/pseuds/JLencre
Summary: So you've noticed I'm screening comments and are wondering why. You're also wondering if I'm going to be a b!tch if you comment at all. Here are your answers.





	On Feedback: An Author's Perspective

First, this isn’t something I ever thought I’d write. I think I’m a fairly pragmatic person. I’m aware that I’m not a paid novelist. No one is flocking to stand in line at the local bookstore to wait for the second the doors open just so they can buy my book. History will never know my name, and I’m quite happy that way.

Writing isn’t a popularity contest; it’s a form of expression. I write because there’s a story in my head. I share it for the same reason a lot of artists share their work: I want to entertain. If you want to go a step deeper, I’m also asking if others can see and enjoy my view of the multiverse. Many people don’t and would never enjoy what my imagination comes up with.

_That’s a good thing!_

There are plenty of stories out there that I don’t want to read and wouldn’t enjoy if I were forced to read them. I say again, that is a good thing. If we were all the same, we’d all die of sheer boredom. Or turn into the Borg, and we all know how that turned out.

So on to feedback and comments.

Let me say I adore receiving comments and hearing what parts of the story have made a reader curious, furious, happy, sad, etcetera. It's a thrill to know that readers have enjoyed the story enough they’ve clicked the kudos button, much less that they feel invested enough to want to comment.

Only with about 1-2% of readers is that not the case. However, even for that 1-2%, all I ask is that they be polite. A reader doesn’t like my version of someone? It’s perfectly fine for them to tell me so… as long as they can remember their manners at the same time. I’m not going to turn into a raging Hulk monster or cry and hide under my bed just because people don’t like what I’ve written. Honestly, I don’t know why people would want to waste their time telling me about it instead of clicking the back button and moving on with their lives, but that’s their problem, not mine.

Much to my surprise, I've had to turn on comment moderation for the series I’ve started. Free speech being the good thing it is, people are within their rights to leave whatever comment they like, just as I am within my rights to screen and delete those comments.

Oddly, though, that hasn’t been the biggest problem. I've enabled comment moderation mostly because I've had commenters who felt the need to speculate – _in detail_ – about what I will do with major themes, plot points, and relationships. Along that same line, there are those who feel they have the right to tell me what I **should** do, which is something even my beta (who is also an author) and I are very careful not to do to each other… and we’ve actually _asked_ for the other person’s opinion!

While I understand some may feel that their interest is a compliment to the author’s storytelling skills, I have to tell you that it doesn’t feel that way. To me, it’s incredibly rude, if only because it's puts me in an impossible position. If the commenter is wrong, I'm not going to come out and say so, but people will wonder if I changed my story to avoid proving them right. If they're right or partially right, I'm not going to confirm and give anything away too early; yet if I write as planned, then people will think I used the commenter's idea. As I said, it’s an impossible position, and I lose credibility in my creative work no matter what I choose.

It’s important to me that the story I tell comes from me and isn’t a reaction for or against whatever someone else has said in feedback. Hence, I’ve chosen to screen and delete some comments.

Now, if you’ve made it this far, kudos to you! (Haha! See what I did there?)

I think I can guess that some of you might be wondering if it’s worth it to leave a comment at all, and I don’t blame you. Keep in mind I’m a reader too, so I know what it’s like to feel like an author is going to be so antagonistic or misinterpret any comment I make that I decide not comment. I don’t want my space on AO3 to feel like that, so here are some examples of things I’m completely fine with, and things that make me feel like someone is trying to park their Humvee in the middle of my flower bed. Sometimes examples make more sense than a long(er) explanation.

I’m totally fine with these:

  * Your Italian is wrong here. I’m not sure what you were going for, but you actually said, “I love your kitchen sink fornication neighbor’s bathtub yellow.” _(Seriously, Yes! Please DO correct my translation errors.)_
  * “I don’t get the deal with Hermione. Is she just a bitch, or is there something going on with her?”
  * "I liked the story, but there's a spot in chapter 23 where I think you meant to say 'Stiles couldn't put up with the way Scott masticated in public. Food inevitably got all over him and Allison.' You used another m-word that sounds a lot like masticated, but it really, really isn't the same thing. At all. That, or you're doing one of them horribly wrong. If so, please don't share which." _(Yes! Please let me know if I've made an egregious error that significantly changes the meaning of the line. Do not let my story go around with its shirt on inside-out. Tell me that stuff.)_
  * “Wait, Kirk is a Vulcan and grew up on Vulcan? I’m not sure what’s going to happen when he and Spock meet. I thought all the Vulcan kids were mean to Spock in canon because he was a ‘half-breed.’ Won’t that mean Kirk will be cruel to him too?”
  * “Hey, I wonder if Carter will ever hook up with Martouf. I always thought they should have in canon. They definitely had chemistry even after Jolinar was dead."
  * “Ziva really burns my bacon! I hope you throw her off a cliff/drop a nuke on her/have her eaten by a wildebeest.” _(I have a lot of ideas for this one!)_
  * “I hope we get to see Jack regret cheating on Daniel! I really can’t believe that he cheated with Selmak, of all people. That grossed me out, TBH. What do Jacob and Samantha think about it? I can't wait to see their reactions to Jack’s infidelity.”
  * “Kirk and Spock are super hot. I wouldn’t object if you decided to put Leonard or Nyota in a sandwich with them!”



Then here are comments I’d screen and delete:

  * “You wrote mpreg. And the characters are gay men. And that’s just gross. And you’re going to burn!!11!1!” _(This one will make me laugh at you and share your comment with my beta so we can mock you together.)_
  * “Oh! I see you’re up to the canon episode where they go to the bug planet. I bet that instead of having the bug bite and start sucking out John’s life, it will just bite him and start turning him into a bug. EXCEPT John will have a super!immune system, and he’ll be able to fight it off, but it will leave him with a lot of cool abilities. That would make a lot of sense.”
  * “I bet this will mean that the team doesn’t get the bug eggs in time, and they won’t be able to reverse John’s bugdom. Carson will have to work on the retrovirus with materials directly from a Wraith, which means the Michael thing is going to happen early. I’m not sure how that will impact that plot line. I’ll have to think about it. Very interesting, thanks!”
  * “While the Daedalus is on Earth, and while Caldwell still has the goa’uld, he should hunt down Mayborne and use the ribbon on him and turn his brain to mush. Then when Hermiod gets the goa’uld out of Caldwell on Atlantis, Caldwell will feel so guilty he’ll throw himself off the balcony of one of the really tall buildings.”
  * “Chaya should have let Atlantis move to her planet. I’m sure there could have been a work-around to whatever rules the Ancients laid down to punish her. Then she could have had a real relationship with John. Rodney got to have Keller, so it’s not fair that you didn’t give John a love interest.”
  * “Kirk needs to stop freaking out all the time. I know he’s not a Vulcan, but you need to write him more like canon, even though your story has the AU warning tag. I don’t like him so emotional.




End file.
